Microsoft to compete with AppleTV

Yeah, duh. Anything Apple does, Microsoft will be there to compete, either directly or indirectly. Now according to SeekingAlpha, the latest item in Microsoft’s cross-hairs is AppleTV. For years, MS has been using its Windows Media Center extender technology to allow devices like the Xbox 360 and your home computer to be turned into Windows Media Center platforms. Though it’s actually a decent UI and works very well, it just never took off for Microsoft correctly.

Now Yahoo! News is reporting the following:

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is going in a hyper-announcement mode: it is announcing its plans to help launch a new line of “media extenders”, which are TV set-top boxes which will connect wirelessly to PCs running the Home Premium or Ultimate flavors of Windows Vista and enable users to use their TV sets to watch movies, online video and other content stores on PCs. Essentially something like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTV.

[…]

MSFT launched a different line of extenders a few years ago for the Windows XP Media Center Edition, but it never took off.

With AppleTV losing appeal and possibly even being phased out, Apple has got to get back into the game of streaming media if it wants to compete with Microsoft. With so many Xbox 360 owners out there, all Microsoft needs to do is make the software easy-to-use and accessible. Then it’s all over.